Of the produce of any given cultivation, it is difficult to speak with any degree of correctness: calculations of this kind are difficult to make amongst a people labouring each for himself, and all for the wants of the day: for, unaccustomed to generalize, each gives his own as the average, and hence the discrepancy which every person must have remarked who has had occasion to make inquiries of this description in half civilized countries, where a main point, the value of the labourer's time, and of that of his animals, is invariably left out, as is also the difference of work for himself and for a master. The tables given at the conclusion of Comyn's work are, as far as regards the vicinity of the capital, very erroneous. They are also very deficient in many points. [87] The following is a much nearer approximation.
A quinion of land requires four ploughings and three harrowings, say six ploughings in all.
Now as 1 Quinion will occupy a hired labourer about 90 days at 2 1/2 Rials = 28 Dollars 1 Rial, which for six times is 168 6 Fencing, 12 Ds.; Grubbing, &c., 15; Cane Slips, 25; Planting, 18; Weeding and Hoeing, 30; Carriage, 18; Manufacture, 45; Pilones, &c., 12 175 0 Cost 343 6 Produce at low average, 150 Pilones, [88] salable at 3 1/2 Ds. 487 4 ======= Profit 143 6
This supposes the proprietor of the cane to be possessed of a mill, buffaloes, &c. for the wear of which no estimate is made.
The 150 pilones of sugar, each weighing about 150 lbs. gross, will produce the refiner who has purchased them about 100 piculs of sugar, of which
80 1st sort, worth 6 1/4 Dollars 500 0 20 2d ditto, and Molasses, &c. 3 3/4 75 0 ======= 575 0
They have cost him about 487 4 Refiner's allowance on 100 Pilones, S. Ds. 47 8
The profits of the refiner would appear high; and they have been so; but are far from what this statement appears to give, from various reasons, of which the chief are, the heavy capital sunk in buildings, interest on advances, &c. and from a want of knowledge, the enormous waste of labour in the process. A glance at this may give an idea of what trade is at these antipodes of commercial knowledge.
I have termed the process "refining;" it should rather be called claying and sorting--and it is as clumsily managed as the ingenuity of man could well devise. The trade is principally in the hands of three or four capitalists; advances are made by these to brokers, the provincial merchants, who annually bring their produce to the capital in small vessels, [89] and to the masters of coasting traders, in which the sugar merchants have shares. These are made to a large amount, 80 to 100,000 dollars; and as the interest of this must at least run for six months at 9 per cent. it forms a heavy item. Losses and defaulters form another, say 1/2 per cent. in all 5 per cent.